obedience : dispositional explanation

Question 1

what is the dispositional explanation for obediece

Answer 1

the authoritarian personality

Question 2

outline adorno et al study into situational variables

Answer 2

A - aimed to investigate why antisemitism existed and how it contributed towards the Holocaust through a survey method.

P - measured 2000 middle-class white americans and their unconscious attitudes towards other racial groups

developed and used F-scale to measure authoritarian personality

F- found people with authoritarian personalities identified with the strong and pitied the weak; aware of their own social status, showed extreme respect and flattery to those of higher status
patronised those of lower status
were driven by stereotypes and prejudice
cognitive style - black and white thinking

C- concluded that the authoritarian personality has a tendency to be obedient to authority characterised by: extreme respect for it as well as extreme submissiveness to it. They show contempt for people of a lower status

Question 3

what is authoritarian personality

Answer 3

being highly obedient to those in authority

being submissive to people of higher status

being dismissive of those deemed to be inferior

Question 4

what are the origins of the authoritarian personality

Answer 4

forms in childhood as result of strict disciplinarian parenting [impossibly high standards, conditional love from parents]

experiences create hostility and despair in child, cannot express these feelings towards their parents. these emotions are displaced onto the weak [scapegoating]

Question 5

what does dispositional emphasise

Answer 5

the importance of an individual’s personality

Question 6

strength of the authoritarian personality as an explanation for obedience

Answer 6

P- research support

E- milgram and elms (1965) interviewed 20 fully obedient participants from milgram’s original obedience studies

A- found that they scored significantly higher on the F-scale than a comparison group of 20 disobedient participants

C- this suggest that obedient people may share many of the characteristics of people with an authoritarian personality

E- matters bc this support adorno

Question 7

weakness of using authoritarian personality as an explanation for obedience

Answer 7

P- on the other hand milgram and elms also found that obedient participants has characteristics that were unusual for authoritarians

E- e.g. they did not experience high levels of punishment in childhood

A - suggest that there is a much more complex link

C- this means that authoritarianism is not a useful predictor of obedience
E

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P - F-scale is politically biased

E - christie and jahoda (1954) argued that F-scale aims to measure tendency toward extreme right-wing ideology

A - but right-wing and left-wing authoritarianism both insist on complete obedience to political authority

C- therefore, adorna’s theory is not a comprehensive explanation as it does not explain obedience to left-wing authoritarianism

E

-

P - authoritarian personality cannot explain obedience in the majority

E - millions of individuals in germany displayed obedient and anti-semitic behaviour but it is impossible that they all had the same personality

A - it seems unlikely that the majority of germany population had an authoritarian personality. a more likely explanation would be that the germans identified with the Nazi state

C- therefore, the social identity theory might be a better explanation. as they are influenced by the groups

E